Page 8 of The Problem with Fire
I glanced at the name flashing across the screen, I slid the icon over and answered. “Shouldn’t you be at practice or making stadiums go crazy or something?”
“You would think,” Nathan replied. “But nothing is more important than my mother’s happiness.”
I laughed. “Gideon?”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “What’s up with that? I just talked to Mom when we landed in Chicago two days ago.”
“Mother’s Day is in a couple of weeks,” I said. “Maybe he’s feeling the pressure because we’ll both be working.”
“And maybeshe’slaying it on thick because she knows we’ll both be working,” he replied, and I let out a small snicker. Both my parents knew our work schedules as well as we did. Mine was an ongoing repeat of rotating days and Gideon’s was a routine Monday through Friday. But the second Nathan got his team’s season schedule, that thing was emailed to my mother before most wives of his teammates got their copies.
Mom didn’t fuck around when it came to her sons.
“Yeah, well, he called me earlier and threatened to kick my ass if I didn’t call her,” I told him. “Nate, I just talked to her yesterday.”
“Yeah?” he snorted. “Well, if I ever come up missing, the dumbass left a voicemail detailing how my body will never be found if I don’t call Mom. It was aggressive and, frankly, uncalled-for. If he’s going to murder me, it should be for something more dire that not calling Mom. Especially, when Ididcall her.”
“She’s going to get Gid sent to prison for no good reason with her nonsense,” I remarked.
“Right?” Nathan agreed. “And the poor bastard doesn’t even realize he’s getting played.”
“She’s a diabolical one, for sure,” I muttered.
“So, have you called her yet?” he asked.
“I did,” I admitted. “About a couple of hours ago. And I’m warning you now, Nate, she was on her Dad-works-too-hard kick.”
My mother was bored. Plain and simple, she was bored as fuck. Dad had been able to provide well for her and us over the years, and so she’s always been a stay-at-home mother, wife, and homemaker. When Nathan had finally graduated from college ten years ago, she had gotten a bad case of empty nest syndrome. I think having her baby traveling all over the country and unavailable at times, had really hit her hard. She might go a few days without seeing me, but we could talk on the phone more than she could with Nate. She went months without seeing Nathan in person, and that fucked with her. Gideon was the most accessible to her, and I think that’s why he got the brunt of her smother-mothering.
Nathan groaned. “How many times do we have to tell her that he works because hewantsto,” he grumbled. “The house and cars are paid for, and retirement is plenty for their basic household costs. Dad’s working because he still wants to.”
“Choir here,” I replied.
“Yeah, well, the woman needs to take that shit up with her husband. We have no say in that,” he kept complaining. “Jesus. Could you imagine one of us trying to tell Dad what to do with his life? He’d skin you alive.”
“Me? Why me?”
“He needs Gideon to keep their business going, and I’m worth millions and loved by a nation,” he replied. “You might fight fires and save lives, but you’re clearly the more dispensable out of all of us.”
“I’m first born,” I reminded him. “That makes me more important than the two of youcombined.”
“And as the first born, it is your duty to sacrifice yourself for your younger siblings,” he fired back. “Isn’t it your duty to serve andprotect?”
“Those are cops, asshole.”
“My point is still valid.” But before I could call him an asshole again, he said, “I gotta go. I don’t have much time, and I gotta call Mom. Again.”
“Yeah. Gideon flying to Chicago to kick your ass is just a disaster waiting to happen,” I replied.
“Well, we wouldn’t be in this situation if you’d hurry your ass up and give Mom some goddamn grandchildren,” he said, continuing to blame me for Gideon’s and Mom’s crazy. “Hurry up and ask your sexy neighbor out and save us all.” Yeah. My brothers knew about my obsession because…well, they were my brothers.
“I’m working on it,” I lied.
“Work harder, Sayer,” he demanded. “An instant granddaughter is just what we need to get her off our backs.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Chapter 5
